"You're going to injure yourself," the old man called out. I know.
She hit the wall. A loud thud echoed around the room, followed by Mikayla's loud yelp and then hissing. Her shoulder felt like it had just been set on fire.
"I told you," he said as she sat back down, clutching her shoulder.
"You're very pompous," Mikayla commented. "Are you still asleep?"
"Not after that horrendous racket you just made."
She lifted her head to look at him. Brumous eyes narrowed at her in return, crinkling the vellum skin of his face. He was just older than his voice, Mikayla would say-- possibly in his early sixties-- although the deep creases that mapped his tired, sour expression and the wispy, gunmetal-gray hair, led her to believe that he had led a strenuous life, aging him further than he would otherwise have been.
"Where are we?" she asked once more.
His lip curled. "Samret," he spat out.
Mikayla told him she had never heard of the place.
The old man waved a dismissive hand. "You won't have, being what you are."
"What?"
"Yes, little girl, what. You are human, are you not? Your kind has a tendency towards ignorance."
She blinked. "So you're saying you aren't human?"
"And she gets it! I must commend-"
"Don't play games with me, old man. My life isn't some sort of joke you can mess around with. As if you aren't human," she scoffed.
The old man grumbled, "Believe what you want, girl. I may be related to your kind, but I will not stoop to naming myself as being a part of it. Do you have any more questions that you aren't going to listen to the answer of?"
Mikayla tilted her head slightly, but she didn't have time to dwell on his answers. At least he was answering now, even if his answers were just absurd tales. "What's your name?"
"Emmit Riordan."
"I would say nice to meet you, Emmit, but it really isn't. I'm Mikayla."
He chuckled slightly at her tone.
"Why are we here?" she asked.
"Finally, the good questions! I was really beginning to doubt you had a smart bone in your body, Mikayla."
Whatever. "Just answer it."
"You, darling girl, are here for your blood. See, this little town, Samret, happens to be in a-- how do I put this-- unfavorable location. It's to do with what happened in the past..." he paused, the wrinkles in his brows deepening as he thought for a moment. "Hmm, let's put it this way, shall we?
"This town, and some of the locations nearby, were once thriving. The... the natural resources were very plentiful, and it was in a good position, being situated near to a major... a major road. Its people were happy, and its economy was thriving.
"As the area expanded, and more people flocked to enjoy the wealth of natural resources here, it got overcrowded. Congested. There were just too many people, all with grand plans, and not enough space for them all. Slowly, the natural resources diminished, until the land became hostile, poisoned by the people who lived there. The entire region cannot support life on its own any more, it has been so badly affected."
"What do you mean, it can't support life?" Mikayla asked, frowning.
"I was getting to that," he grumbled, "but you just had to go and interrupt. Your kind have no manners anymore-"
Mikayla's eyebrows raised slightly. "My kind? Humans?"
"Look, just let me carry on. I'm already having to dim it down for you so you can wrap your puny mind around what I'm saying, the least you could do is show a little respect," Emmit spat out. "Where was I?"
"It can't support life."
"The question was rhetorical, girl. You do know what rhetorical means, don't you?"
Mikayla began to open her mouth.
"That one was rhetorical too."
She shut it.
"Right, the region cannot support life on its own anymore. The air is too thin, the soil infertile, it is too cold, and too dry, all because people took more than they should have. So, naturally, when people can't live in an area anymore, they leave. They get angry first, and riot, but they do leave after that. Only one place in this region, a city called Zerzura, remained inhabited, and that was because its rulers... refused to move, and so their people refused to move, and those people's families refused to move, and so on. Zerzura is still habitable because the people who live there have developed expensive, unsustainable technologies to make it so. The rest of the region was deserted.
"One... extremely powerful group of people, who call themselves the Circle of Ladrahn, saw this abandonment as an opportunity to expand and to gain land, and a way to practice not so savory things without anybody to police them. They found another way to keep the region habitable, and that was through the use of very evil technologies. Concentrating their efforts in a few select areas, they managed to restrict entry into those areas because they are very difficult to access.
"Samret is one of these areas-- the one closest to the center of the region, so furthest from any sort of control. It has become a bit of a safe haven for burglars and the like; although the Circle of Ladrahn have agreed that they will hand over any high-profile criminals to the police, people who have committed more petty crimes can escape justice here.
"This has led to some questionable forms of entertainment," Emmit narrowed his eyes at Mikayla, "one of which you are to be a part of, girl."
"Why are we here," she repeated, "you haven't answered the question."
"I cannot. Not unless you are willing to open your mind and accept what you have seen recently. To accept everything you have been told is not real, is silly, imaginary," snapped Emmit. "Until you do that, you will just look at me like a crazy old man."
"I'm already looking at you like you're a crazy old man. I'd give you three guesses why, but it should be pretty easy to figure out. Maybe it's because you are one?" she retorted.
"I cannot deny that, but yet, I do speak the truth. Think of everything you have encountered so far, Mikayla. You have to know, have to at least have a sense that there are things out there which aren't fully human."
The two men with the staffs. No, what are you thinking? They had to be human. Even as the thought passed through her mind, she knew it wasn't true. Something had been strange about those men, with the way they tapped their staffs on the ground and made things happen. And the invisible wall. Mikayla wasn't even sure it was a wall at all, because walls tended to be made of things you could see, of physical materials.
Emmit watched as she reached out thoughtfully to touch the barrier. "It's magic," he said bluntly.
Her eyes snapped up to meet his. Magic doesn't exist, was the first thing she thought, quickly followed by, how would you explain this so far then? Her brain couldn't think of a different solution.
"What does faukaran mean?" she asked.
"It could be simply translated to 'do it'," he replied, before adding, "You are asking the wrong questions again, Mikayla."
She paused for a second, thinking. "What language is it?"
"There isn't a name for it in your world. It could be described as the language of magic, though. It is used when performing spells. See, the simplest way for a person who is able to use magic to cast is for them to voice their intentions. Describe what they want to happen, and force it into existence. However, this is a very basic and childish way of casting, and does not get you far."
"That sounds complicated," she sighed.
"It is not when you are used to it."
"Those men-- the ones that took me here-- were they magicians?"
Cackling, Emmit threw his head back. "No, girl, they were not magicians. There are different species which can perform magic, and those were warlocks. Do not call them magicians, they would despise the term."
"Are you a warlock?"
"Yes, I am. Although, I cannot really do much without my staff, nor in this godforsaken prison."
Mikayla took a deep breath. "Why are we here?"
He smiled in return. "The Circle of Ladrahn-- warlocks form Circles, you know-- they use an evil kind of magic which involves their own blood. It amplifies the spell they are casting, making it stronger. This meant they could keep this region safe to live in, whilst not using any more natural resources. However, if they were to just do that, it wouldn't last very long. A warlock's blood doesn't just magically regenerate by itself.
"So, they perform another spell, a pretty basic healing one, in which they use another being's blood to regenerate their own. This spell can fully restore roughly a hundred warlocks' blood, so is reasonably efficient. Are you following, girl?"
She nodded. "Weird group of warlocks keep Samret safe to live in by using blood magic, but they need blood from somewhere else to keep their own flowing."
"That sums it up. Specifically, they need blood from you."
Mikayla blinked. "Why aren't I hooked up to a blood bag, then?"
Emmit cackled once more. "They need your dying blood, girl. Otherwise it will only match itself in the amount it restores. They are planning to kill you in a pretty clever way as well. See, Samret-"
"They're going to kill me?"
"Yes! Why else would they have kidnapped you?"
"I don't know, Emmit, that's why I'm asking you to explain! Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "I thought you had figured it out by now. Right, so Samret is home to a lot of criminals-"
"Why do you seem like you're admiring the way they're going to kill me? It's not good- they're going to kill me!"
"Shush, girl, and listen, You can assess how you feel about your imminent death once I am done talking. There are a lot of criminals in Samret, all of which need entertaining to keep them happy, so, once a year, they hold a big event in the center of the town. They send three humans into a magical maze, normally young women because their screams are supposedly the most entertaining, and tell them that they can have a wish granted if they manage to make it out of the maze alive."
"So you just didn't think to mention earlier that I'm going to be thrown into a magical maze where I've only got a- wait, what are my chances of survival?"
"By my calculations, roughly zero percent. I'm not an excellent mathematician, but it wasn't the hardest of calculations, so I suspect that I got it right."
"You're saying nobody has survived before?"
"Yes. Well, one person has, but that person wasn't really a person, he was half sorcerer and half mystical bull, and he still has not found his way out of that maze, but I didn't include him in my calculation because you are not really much like him."
Mikayla fell back on the floor, groaning. "So I don't just have to get through this maze which is impossible to get through, I also have to avoid a... a-"
"Half sorcerer, half mystical bull?"
"Yes, I also have to avoid that?"
"Pretty much."
"So I'm going to die."
"Most likely," Emmit said happily.
Next update: Friday 20th April 2018
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